Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Book Analysis

"All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way" 

With this first line Tolstoy starts his novel and at the same time my favorite book of all time, Anna Karenina. 

Anna Karenina follows two characters. We have Anna Karenina herself, a beautiful aristocratic woman and mother trapped in this loveless marriage and escapes by plunging into a passionate affair with the young and handsome Count Vronsky. A love story which starts of as something so passionate and romantic ends in jealousy, hatred, tragedy and lots of consequences. On the other hand we have Levin, a socially awkward and kind-hearted landowner living his agricultural lifestyle and trying to find his purpose in life.

It's been almost a month since I have finished this book and yet I still think about it and probably always will. I knew I was going to love it, and even that it would/could become my favorite book of all time. Originally I wanted to wait to read it on my birthday but the excitement, thirst on knowledge and great writing made me grab it on July 20 and finishing it on August 13.  Reading this book was a life changing experience and I beg anyone who is reading this review and asking if they should start, please do it. I promise you will not regret it. It Became my favorite for so many reasons. It discusses topics like love, religion, judgement, society, mental health, politics and the list goes on. It is structured in a very unusual and yet beautiful way. The narrative changes every 7-12 chapters and we're getting an inside into the mind and thoughts of every single character. 

This book taught me so much and it made my expectations in books higher than ever. Whenever I am reading a book now I have to compare it to Anna Karenina, which is not fair but having read something so INCREDIBLE makes you automatically prefer and put it next to everything. If I finish a book I ask myself 'is this anna karenina good or just good?' because there is seriously to me no greater book than this. The characters are written with so much depth, the story in general is extremely fascinating and Tolstoy's writing and description of life, beauty, religion and nature is just amazing. Beyond amazing. 

My favorite character in this book is Anna, which might be a little unusual because most people prefer Levin and his perspective over Anna's. But even though I do really love Levin, Anna to me, is a character with so much depth, so much complexity and a character so interesting and fascinating. On one side she's very manipulative, she's having these outbursts for no reason or being extremely jealous and doing wrong things in general but on the other hand to me, she is innocent, and sad and kind and loving and all she wants is love; just being loved and she threw her whole life away for someone; her son, her name and status and also herself. I do see why people hate her but to me even if she has her flaws she deserves so much better and she is so interesting that even her flaws make her a fascinating and very well written character.

What I also love about this book, is you can have a strong opinion on literally everything that is happening.: Does Karenin deserve sympathy? Is the way that society treats Anna fair? Did Vronsky really love Anna? There is so much to say about this book and the characters and just everything in general that I think is what a good book should be a about. A good book causes conversations , feelings in the reader and a connection between reader and book and this book did everything out of these so brilliantly and amazing  that it became my favorite book of all time.